Construction firms, and other individuals and entities tasked with installing wall opening frames, are concerned with the cost of materials and labor necessary to install, adjust, and remove such frames. These concerns are shared with the building owner. Typically, the wall opening that needs framing is measured by the construction firm, a frame is ordered to fit the wall opening, and the frame is installed into the wall opening. This technique requires each frame to be custom-made to each wall opening size, resulting in more costly framing and potentially improperly measured frames that must be reordered. In other applications, construction firms will order pre-manufactured frames and construct wall openings to fit those frames. This approach allows firms to order frames in bulk, providing a less costly and time consuming alternative to custom-made frames. However, this approach restrains the construction firm to wall opening sizes that correspond to the pre-manufactured frames. Additionally, pre-fabricating wall frames may be difficult or impractical for applications that require widely varying frame widths and wall materials.
In commercial buildings, the tenants can change frequently, requiring wall opening sizes to be changed and new frames to be installed. To reframe a wall with different wall opening sizes, current frame designs require destruction of the frame or the wall to remove the old frame. Additionally, the typically non-adjustable nature of frames requires firms to purchase an entirely new frame when a different framing application is needed, which can be both costly and time consuming.
Replacement of damaged doors, windows, door frames, and window frames is another common source of cost to the building owner. When only a portion of a frame is damaged, removal of the damaged section, or potentially the entire frame, requires the wall opening frame to be destroyed and rebuilt to replace the frame. For buildings that have large doors, windows, or other framed openings, or buildings with unique wall material, replacing frames using the current framing technology can be expensive.
An additional concern when framing wall openings is safety and security. Frames are ideally installed to make unauthorized access to buildings difficult, thereby increasing safety and security. To accomplish this goal, common frames are fastened to the interior building materials of a wall and then the exterior of the wall is built up around the frame and interior portion. By so doing, the exterior of the wall does not allow access to the fastening mechanisms and thereby discourages unauthorized access by not allowing intruders to undo those fasteners. However, the drawback of this design is that when a frame needs to be removed, destruction of the exterior wall or the frame itself is required to access the fastening mechanisms.
Another safety and security concern exists when doors or windows are being replaced or altered. While the door or window is not mounted on the wall, the risk of unauthorized access to the interior of the building increases. Today's framing designs require construction firms to measure the wall opening, order the frame, and then wait until the framing materials arrive to install the frame and secure the building. If pre-manufactured framing materials were readily available that could be used regardless of the wall opening size, the amount of time the building would be unsecure would be diminished.
The current framing designs, therefore, impose either costly custom installation or installation limited by standard pre-manufactured dimensions, and do not allow for adjustability or removability without partial or complete destruction of the wall opening or the frame.